


Of Apron Strings and Grey Scrambled Eggs

by CaseyStar



Series: Summer Pornathon 2014 [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Modern Era, naked cooking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 13:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2026695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaseyStar/pseuds/CaseyStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We hate each other, therefore the sex is mindblowing.”</p><p>The arrangement was sex.  Their hatred led to awesome hate sex but Merlin's been struggling with wondering how his feelings might be changing a year into this agreement.  Then he walks in on Arthur attempting to cook breakfast.  </p><p>Which is strictly not part of the arrangement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Apron Strings and Grey Scrambled Eggs

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge One entry for the Summer Pornathon 2014 - Sexpistolary; choosing a text from Texts From Last Night.
> 
> Mine was - “We hate each other, therefore the sex is mindblowing.”
> 
> Over on tumblr [ kcsplace](http://kcsplace.tumblr.com), so come say hello here if you want.

Their relationsh- _arrangement_ was, according to Arthur, simple enough for an _un_ trained monkey to understand. _’Surely Merlin, you can wrap your head around this as well as you wrap your hand around my dick,_ being his exact words, which had resulted in round two with Merlin holding Arthur down as he fucked in, in, in to that glorious body.

It was sex. 

Phenomenal sex, but nothing more. Arthur had made that clear when they’d woken – horrified- after their first drunken fumble. No talking, no feelings, no cooking each other breakfast. 

Which was why Merlin couldn't be seeing what he was; the view was admittedly delicious with the strings of an apron incongruously swaying over Arthur’s bare ass as he vigorously prodded at what faintly resembled scrambled eggs, though Merlin had never managed, in his culinary disasters, to make them _grey_.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Merlin blurted, nonplussed. On the rare occasions they woke up together it was generally indicative of being too drunk to move or too horny to pass up a sure thing like waking to a blow job, not brunch. If Arthur was going to mess with the rules, he should warn Merlin; he needed time to prepare himself for things like Arthur cooking, practically naked, sort out his increasingly muddled feelings; about the arrangement; about Arthur; about what he wanted; about that warm fluttering he got whenever he was near Arthur.

“Sit,” Arthur motioned to the rickety table Merlin had proudly rescued from a skip, and dazedly Merlin sat, distracted by the scratch marks he'd scored across Arthur's golden skin; like wings they spanned his shoulders and arced down his back to that beautiful ass, red crescent-shaped marks betraying Merlin’s grip of hours before when he’d guided Arthur's hips as the blond had ridden him with a desperate fury.

He was pulled from his daydream by a plate clattering in front of him, grey eggs atop toast, Arthur turning to the sink dropping the spatula with a splat.

"I know your lease is up soon,” he said, reaching to tap his temple, “so I was brainstorming-"

"Pretty sure storms can't exist in a vacuum," Merlin scoffed reflexively in his bafflement, poking experimentally at his breakfast with a finger as Arthur sat with his own.

" _So,_ ” Arthur continued, ignoring him, “it's stupid that to keep taking cabs and travelling back and forth to each other’s places. We should move in together. It’d be more…” Arthur whirled his fork in the air, “convenient.” He gestured between them, egg plopping onto the table top, “For both of us.”

“For the, uh,-?” Merlin halted, unsure.

“Sex. Yes.”

“You don’t think that’s a tad extreme? Moving in just for sex?”

“Isn’t that what couples do?”

_‘Couple?’_

"And when one of us meets someone?"

‘ _Not that I’m looking_ ’

Merlin abandoned any pretence of eating and focused on playing along until something made sense.

"When did that last happen? Honestly?" Arthur asked, shovelling a forkful of egg into his mouth before lurching to the sink to spit, wiping at his mouth furiously.

"With seductive technique like yours, it's no surprise you can't get a date."

"Maybe I don't want them!" Arthur grit out, turning to Merlin, his face a mask of tension and, to Merlin’s surprise, _fear_. "Maybe I don't want anyone else."

"But you hate me," Merlin bleated, too confused to know what to do. "That's what you said when we - that it was good because we hate each other."

"That was then."

"What changed?"

"Me."

Arthur's whisper was barely audible.

“I’d like,” Arthur swallowed hard, fingers gripping onto the sink to counteract his suddenly weak legs, “for us to…ah…be, uh, more. Be not, apart-” Merlin’s never heard Arthur so unsure, or look so small as he confessed…what Merlin has known of himself for a while.

Arthur jumps like a startled stoat at the scrape of Merlin’s chair, closing his eyes and turning his face away as he braced for the fist he’s sure is coming.

Gentle fingers caress his cheek instead, soft lips pressing to his jaw, again and again, far more powerful than any blow.

Later, when Merlin swept aside the mess of their breakfast and pushed Arthur down onto the table, as he flipped up that stupid apron to curl his hand around Arthur's cock and slide two fingers into his hole still faintly slick from the night before, as he thrust his tongue between swollen lips, Merlin can’t resist having the last word, just audible over the protesting squeaks of the table.

"Clotpole."


End file.
